Baltic Dry Index. 606 -14 Brent Crude 65.20
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
People often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves.
Aesop.
Did Greece just win the game of Russian roulette with Berlin and Brussels? They clearly have already won against Frankfurt. As we head into the Whitsun holiday and the Memorial Day holiday in America, has American behind the scenes arm twisting forced the EUSSR back to sanity on Greece? We should know by this time next week. If Greece is still in the dying, wealth and jobs destroying euro, though why they would want to remain is a mystery, Greece will have won. There won’t be enough time left for the EUSSR nations to do anything but rubber stamp whatever relief settlement Greece has managed to secure.
Below, UK MSM catches on. In the EUSSR, time is not on their side but on Greece’s.
The gods help them that help themselves.
Aesop.
Defiant Greeks force Europe to negotiating table as time-bomb ticks
EMU creditors have Greece's Alexis Tsipras by the scruff of the neck, but he has a knife to their throats
Europe's creditor powers have started to wobble. Berlin, Paris and Brussels are coming to the grim conclusion that Greece may not capitulate as expected, and time is running out fast.
Athens is now warning openly that
the "moment of truth" will come on June 5, when the country faces
default on a €300m payment to the International Monetary Fund, unless the EU
authorities hand over the next tranche of bail-out cash.
It would be hazardous to bet the
integrity of monetary union on the assumption that this is just a bluff.
For the past four months the creditor bloc has been dictating terms, mechanically repeating the same demand that Alexis Tsipras and his Syriza rebels deliver on an austerity contract that they vowed to repudiate and which the previous conservative government was unable to implement.
EMU leaders have never at any moment acknowledged that the extra loans imposed on a bankrupt Greek state in 2010 were chiefly designed to save the euro and stem a European-wide banking crisis at a time when the eurozone had no defences against contagion.
They have yielded slightly on Greece's primary budget surplus but are still insisting on fiscal targets that can only trap Greece in a vicious circle of low growth and under-investment. Such a regime would leave the country just as bankrupt in the early 2020s as it was when the traumatic ordeal began, with nothing to show for so many cuts and a decade of depression
They are still pushing Greece to sell off state assets for a pittance to the same old oligarchy, further entrenching the deformities of the Greek economy, presumably - for there is no other urgent imperative - so that they can collect their debts.
Yet creditor bluster has reached its limits. It is by now clear that Syriza is so angry, and so driven by a sense of injustice, that it may be willing to bring the whole temple of monetary and political union crashing down on everybody's heads, if pushed to the brink.
Mr Tsipras spent five hours trying to calm the party leadership on Tuesday as a mutinous caucus on the hard-Left, but not only them, berated him furiously for raiding reserve funds to pay off creditors. Better to default and be done with it.
The mood was already clear at a "war cabinet" 10 days ago when all wings of the party agreed that they would stand and fight - whatever the consequences - rather than submit to demands for a further cut in wages and pensions, or accept any deal that fails to offer debt relief and imposes a primary surplus above 1pc of GDP.
Pensions have already been cut by 44pc, and 48pc for public sector workers, and these stipends are the final safety net for Greek society. The recipients are literally feeding their children and grandchildren and extended kin. More than 900,000 registered unemployed - or 86pc of the total - receive no benefits.
----Suddenly, the technocrats in Brussels have begun to talk of "progress". The word is out that Syriza is finally putting forward serious reform proposals.
This new rhetoric is humbug. The
Greeks offered long ago to draw up plans for free market reforms under the
tutelage of the OECD, the leading specialists in this field.
They offered to draw up flexible
labour laws with the help of the International Labour Federation, a legitimate
alternative to the German-style "Hartz IV" reforms being pushed by
the EU institutions - and anathema to the radical Left.
Syriza put forward a detailed
list of reforms weeks ago. The creditor powers rejected the suggestions out of
hand.
----The European Central Bank is grudgingly doing its part, postponing the long-feared tightening of collateral rules for Greek banks. There is just enough liquidity in the system to limp on until early June.
The ECB can hardly do otherwise. If it were to pull the plug on the Greek banking system and - by its own authority, with no mandate from elected leaders - deliberately precipitate the bankruptcy of the first radical-Left government elected in Europe since the Second World War, it would create a martyr state for the European Left. It would establish for all to see that EMU's governing institions are beyond democratic control.
More
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/11619325/Defiant-Greeks-force-Europe-to-negotiating-table-as-time-bomb-ticks.html
Greek finance minister revives war of words with 'mistaken' Germany
Yanis Varoufakis says Wolfgang Schaeuble is wrong to lay blame at his bankrupt country but denies being called a "gambler" by counterparts
Greece's outspoken finance minister has relaunched a war of words with his German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble, saying the hawkish finance minister is "mistaken" in his analysis of Greece's woes."He associates past Greek governments with the Greek people; as if the former reflect the character of the latter," Mr Varoufakis told Germany's Die Zeit.
The German number two, a harsh critic of European largesse to southern countries, was the subject of an official complaint from Athens over his behaviour towards Mr Varoufakis in March.
Despite describing Mr Schaeuble as a "legendary figure", Mr Varoufakis said his colleague under-estimated the Leftist government's willingness to deepen European integration.
"He does not appreciate how helpful it would be for mainstream Northern Europe to find a modus vivendi with a movement (like SYRIZA in Greece) which may be very critical of European institutions but which is profoundly pro-European and eager to help bring Europe closer together."
Berlin has grown increasingly exasperated with the defiance of Athens' Leftist government over its bail-out conditions.
Four months of talks have yielded no agreement over Greece's future in the euro, pushing the country towards the edge of an unprecedented default.
Athens revived its default threats on Wednesday, saying it had no money to meet its obligations to the International Monetary Fund in June.
Mr Schaeuble meanwhile refused to promise to keep Greece in the currency union at all costs.
"The sovereign, democratic decision of the Greek people has left us in a very different situation," he told the Wall Street Journal.
Known for his rhetorical flourishes and blunt-speaking, Mr Varoufakis has isolated many of Greece’s partners since he came into office in late January.
But the former academic denied he was rounded on by his fellow 18 finance ministers and called an "amateur", "gambler" and "time-waster" at a meeting in Riga last month.
"All these reports that I was abused, that I was called names, that I was called a time-waster and all that: Let me say that I deny this with every fibre of my body," Mr Varoufakis told the New York Times magazine.
More
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/11619076/Greek-finance-minister-revives-war-of-words-with-mistaken-Germany.html
Never trust the advice of a man in difficulties.
Aesop.
At the Comex silver
depositories Wednesday final figures were: Registered 60.70 Moz, Eligible 117.91
Moz, Total 178.13 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today meet the new gangsters, but don’t expect anyone to do time in prison. That’s now only reserved for welfare cheats and the mentally disturbed. Welcome to our new lawless age. Another unintended consequence of the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money.
We
hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
Aesop.
Global banks admit guilt in forex probe, fined nearly $6 billion
NEW YORK/LONDON |
Four major banks pleaded guilty on Wednesday to trying to manipulate foreign
exchange rates and, with two others, were fined nearly $6 billion in another
settlement in a global probe into the $5 trillion-a-day market.Citigroup Inc (C.N), JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), Barclays Plc (BARC.L), UBS AG (UBSG.VX)(UBS.N) and Royal Bank of Scotland Plc (RBS.L) were accused by U.S. and UK officials of brazenly cheating clients to boost their own profits using invitation-only chat rooms and coded language to coordinate their trades.
All but UBS pleaded guilty to conspiring to manipulate the price of U.S. dollars and euros exchanged in the FX spot market. UBS pleaded guilty to a different charge. Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) was fined but avoided a guilty plea over the actions of its traders in chatrooms.
"The penalty all these banks will now pay is fitting, considering the long-running and egregious nature of their anticompetitive conduct," said U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch at a news conference in Washington.
The misconduct occurred until 2013, after regulators started punishing banks for rigging the London interbank offered rate (Libor), a global benchmark, and banks had pledged to overhaul their corporate culture and bolster compliance.
In total, authorities in the United States and Europe have fined seven banks over $10 billion for failing to stop traders from trying to manipulate foreign exchange rates, which are used daily by millions of people from trillion-dollar investment houses to tourists buying foreign currencies on vacation.
The investigations are far from over. Prosecutors could bring cases against individuals, using the banks' cooperation pledged as part of their agreements. Probes by federal and state authorities are ongoing over how banks used electronic forex trading to favor their own interests at the expense of clients.
The settlements on Wednesday stood out in part because the U.S. Department of Justice forced Citigroup's main banking unit Citicorp, and the parents of JPMorgan, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland to plead guilty to U.S. criminal charges.
It was the first time in decades that the parent or main banking unit of a major American financial institution pleaded guilty to criminal charges.
Until recently, U.S. authorities rarely sought criminal convictions against the parents of global financial institutions, instead settling with smaller foreign subsidiaries. That made it easier for the government and the banks to control any fallout on the financial system and bank customers.
Banks involved in the plea deals have been negotiating regulatory exemptions to avoid serious business disruptions that could be triggered by the pleas.
More
Solar & Related Update.
With events
happening fast in the development of solar power, I’ve added this new section.
Updates as they get reported.
The perils of solar
in China. What QE forever and ZIRP has wrought. Easy come, easy go, it’s not as
if it’s real money after all, it’s all only fiat money since the Great Nixonian
Error of fiat money. Mere book keeping entries in the central banksters
computers.
Below, just the
first of many, I suspect, as China’s hard landing grows.
A
liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth.
Aesop.
A 24-Minute, $19 Billion Wipeout Threatens a Chinese Company's Solar Dream
A disastrous day
7:31 PM BST May 20,
2015
Where’s Li Hejun?
That’s the question many were
asking when the founder, chairman and principal owner of Hanergy Thin Film
Power Group Ltd. failed to show up at his company’s annual meeting Wednesday --
the same day the company’s stock price tanked 47 percent, wiping out $19
billion in market value in 24 minutes.
Li’s absence was all the more
noteworthy because over the past year he has tirelessly championed his vision
of a new era of mobile energy: thin, flexible solar cells. They would soon, he
promised, be plastered on just about everything: cars, backpacks, phones,
tents, satellites, flashlights, buildings, lamps, drones and clothing.
Under his stewardship, the
company’s stock had surged more than sixfold in the past year, making it the
world’s most valuable solar company worth more than HK$300 billion ($38.7
billion). That’s larger than Sony Corp. and seven times the size of First Solar
Inc., the biggest U.S. solar manufacturer.
Then on Wednesday, trading was
suspended after the shares spectacularly plunged amid speculation of market
manipulation and questions about the viability of the company’s core
technology.
“The bulk of Hanergy’s technology portfolio remains unproven,” said Jenny Chase, lead solar industry analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Technology aside, for months analysts and investors have raised questions about the company’s revenue source: more than 60 percent of Hanergy Thin Film’s sales come from Beijing-based parent Hanergy Holding Group, a solar panel and hydroelectric company. And Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission has been probing market manipulation in Hanergy’s shares for several weeks, Reuters reported Wednesday, citing an unidentified person. Ernest Kong, a spokesman for the regulator declined to comment to Bloomberg.
“It’s an adjustment that the market has been waiting to happen, as Hanergy’s earnings and business performance didn’t support such a high stock price or valuation,” said Gong Siwen, an analyst in China for Northeast Securities Co.
An even more fundamental investor concern, though, is whether the company’s technology actually works and how big the market for it will be.
More
No
act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
Aesop.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished April
DJIA: +112 Down. NASDAQ: +198 Down. SP500: +150 Down.
No comments:
Post a Comment